“A PROMISE TO MY FATHER”
Melissa Mikel
Max Eisen is a father, grandfather, great-grandfather, retired businessman, educator, an award winning author and holds an Honorary Doctorate of Laws from Trent University. He is also a survivor of Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp who has spent the last seventy-four years of his life working to keep a promise to his father.
In July 1944, Max Eisen stood on the opposite side of the fence from his father and uncle for only moments as they had been selected out for medical testing. Max’s father and uncle were all who remained – Max’s mother, baby sister, two brothers, grandmother, grandfather and aunt had all been sent directly to the gas chamber upon their arrival only a month earlier.
In the rushed moments of their final goodbye, Max’s father blessed him with a classic Jewish prayer and made a request of Max: “If you survive, you must tell the world what happened here.”
Max was 15 years old when he and his family were arrested and deported to Auschwitz during the Hungarian transports. His father and uncle were his guardian angels during the first month of life in Auschwitz, giving him extra pieces of food and shielding him, to the best of their abilities, from the realities of life in this hell on earth.
1939 - Max (on the right) and his two brothers Eugene (left) and Alfred (centre)
1940, photo of Max (centre) with his mother, father and two brothers (a census photo that was required of all Jewish families)